A Heartbeat
by Aria-wolfstar
Summary: Jules woke up with a groan, trying to figure out why nothing felt right, until it all came back to her. The roof. The gunshot. The pain. She looked around for the only person she wanted to see. SamxJules Oneshot Spoiler: Between Heartbeats


Disclaimer: I do not own Flashpoint or any of these characters.

SPOILER: Episode 13, Between Heartbeats.

xXx

**A Heartbeat**

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Jules groaned as conscious thought began to slip back into her mind, and she squeezed her eyelids closer together. Her head pounded, her side throbbed like hell, and she felt fuzzy and heavy all over.

Just as she was struggling to remember what had happened, why everything felt like this, it all came back to her in a rush. The rooftop. The decoy body. The gunshot. The sudden, piercing, white hot hole that zinged through her side, and the inability to breath. Sam's voice, lost in a hazy fog.

She gasped a breath, and winced when the movement caused pain. Biting her lip, she forced herself to calm down. Assess the situation. She flexed her side tentatively, and winced again at the pain it caused. But it wasn't the pain of torn apart flesh, but rather clean stitches. It was only then that she acknowledged the persistent beeping noise by her ear and the too-clean antiseptic smell. She was in a hospital.

She blinked her eyes open forcefully, squinting into the bright lights.

"Well, good morning sleepy head," a voice said by her side, and for a moment she was confused. That wasn't the voice she was expecting to hear.

"Sarge?" she groaned, her voice raspy and dry.

She felt a hand on her shoulder. "Yeah, Jules, it's me," he said, and she turned her head on the pillow to squint up at him. The smile on his face grew when he met her eyes. She could see the relief hidden behind his eyes. She couldn't smile back. Her eyebrows knitted together.

"Where's…" she started to say, but then stopped herself. She couldn't say it, it would be suspicious. _But not really,_ a corner of her mind whispered, _He was on the roof with you._

It didn't matter. The sarge beat her to it with a knowing smile. He jerked his chin to the other side of the bed. "Out like a light—he had a rough night," he said quietly. _Worrying about you,_ his eyes added. He squeezed the hand on her shoulder. "How do you feel?"

"Like I got shot," Jules responded, her voice cracking with dryness. She licked her lips and forced herself to swallow.

The sarge chuckled. "Yeah, well, that happens. Think you can go back to sleep, kiddo?"

Jules shook her head. "No." She didn't think she could ever go back to sleep in here. She hated hospitals and she hated the nightmares she knew would be waiting.

"Okay. I'm going to let the team know…"

"Did you get the guy?" she asked blearily, cutting him off.

"Yeah, Jules, we got him. Sam took the shot—saved Ed's life."

Jules blinked and raised her eyebrows in surprise, but had no words to say. They both heard a grunt from the man asleep in the chair beside the bed and watched as his face contorted and he turned himself sideways in his restless sleep.

"I'm going to let everyone know you're awake. Give Ed a call, let him relax a bit and enjoy his vacation."

"Sarge?"

"I'll tell them you want a bit before you have visitors," the sarge said, giving her a warm smile. "Sound good?"

Jules nodded. "Thanks."

"No problem," he replied, bending over and placing a fatherly kiss on her forehead. "Good work today…well, yesterday."

Jules could only smile in return and watch as he walked out the door, counting to ten before turning her head to look at the man next to her bed. Her heart wrenched at the sight. He was in his blue tee-shirt, and his hair was all messed up, like he had run his fingers through it too many times. His face was dirty and contorted in pain, and for a moment she thought he was hurt, but then she saw his parted lips and quick breathing and recognized the symptoms—he was deep in the clutches of a nightmare.

"Sam," she called softly. She saw him twitch in his sleep. She closed her eyes and took a long, shallow breath, fighting off a stab of pain. "Sam," she tried again, but louder.

She was beginning to feel the annoying clutch of desperation and was beginning to wonder if maybe she should have had Sergeant Parker wake him up on his way out the door—she couldn't raise her voice much more. "Braddock," she tried, and finally she saw him respond, slowly come awake.

All at once, he jerked to consciousness, his eyes wide open and searching wildly around the room, trying to figure out the reason for his disturbance. Finally, they landed on her, and she pulled the corners of her lips up at him in a smile.

"Jules," he whispered, frozen to his seat.

"Hey, Sam," she whispered back, pulling her lips farther back into a smile, trying to show him that she was okay.

He was out of his seat and at her side in a flash, then. His clasped hand around hers and stroked her hair with the other one, caressing her cheek with his thumb, all the while letting his eyes roam about her face, drinking in the sight of her. She curled her fingers around his and kept her eyes locked on his own, remaining contently silent while she let him finish his inspection.

"I got him, Jules. I got the guy," he said, nodding as he looked into her eyes. "I got him for what he did to you." The pressure on her hand tightened, and she could see the liquid building up behind his eyes. Her eyebrows furrowed in concern. "I shouldn't have moved off…I should have, I could have…if I had…"

He broke off with a choked sob and buried his head on the bed, pressing it against the unwounded side of her, his tears spilling onto the sheets, his shoulders shaking with sobs.

Painfully, Jules brought her left arm up and over her chest, ignoring the pull of the stitches in her side, so that she could thread her fingers through his hair (her other hand still in his grasp). "Shhh," she murmured soothingly, feeling that heart tug again, the sadness that _she _was comforting _him_, that it had been that bad of a shot, that bad of a scare to put him in this state. "Shhh…I'm here. I'm alright," she said, and the grip on her hand tightened so that it was almost painful, but she didn't complain. She knew he needed the contact.

Finally, he looked up at her, tears still streaming down his eyes. "I thought I nearly lost you today," he choked out.

She shook her head at him and flashed him a reassuring smile. "I'm right here," she said, flexing the hand he held while retreating the other one, letting out a relieved sigh as the pain level went back down.

"I don't know what to say…I…"

From a distant corner of her mind, his voice rose up to the surface through the fog, startling her as she remembered, for she knew she had clearly heard them while at the same time she knew she couldn't have, "_Hey Jules. Hey sweetheart, How you doing? I got here as fast as I could, Jules. I'm so sorry. I should have protected you."_ She knew there was a pause as he collected himself, and then her name whispered in despair.

"We should have checked it together, stayed behind the shield. I should have…I should have stayed back, that's what I should have done…"

"Sam." She hated hearing him second guess himself. She needed to say something, needed to convince him she was okay.

But he kept going over her words. "Because then we wouldn't be in this mess. If only I had just…"

"Sam," she said, a little bit louder in hopes that he'd hear her.

"No, Jules, you don't understand! I saw you go down, and…time…time just froze. I didn't know if you were alive or dead. And all I could think about was, we didn't have enough time. We needed to finish painting your apartment and I needed to bring you thinner and there was still so much I haven't told you yet that I needed to tell you…"

"Sam!" she said, her voice nearly a shout, and she groaned and winced from the pain it caused. Sam stopped in his tracks when he saw this, although his thumb kept its circle motion on her hand. "You're the one who got me through this," she told him, and she knew he would never grasp how much of the truth that was. She pulled her hand out from under his and lifted it to his face, cupping it against his cheek. He nuzzled his head into its warmth, and she wiped away a tear. "If it hadn't been for you…" _I wouldn't have been able to fight as hard_, she thought, remembering the overwhelming pull of the comforting, painless darkness that waited.

"If it hadn't been for me, you would…"

"Sam," she said sternly, twitching her fingers on his cheek to get his attention. He looked down at her with sad eyes, but at least, she thought, he was making eye contact. "Just shut up and kiss me."

He hesitated. "Jules…"

"Do it." She needed to feel his lips against hers, to take her mind off of everything that was going on—the pain, the hospital, the memories.

He paused for a minute, and then bent his head down slowly, pressing his lips against her very softly. Her fingers curled in his hair, and his hand found her face, cradling her head when she lifted it up to return the kiss.

He put her head down slowly and rested his forehead against hers, breathing deeply. "I don't know what to do, Jules," he murmured, closing his eyes.

"Stay with me," she responded easily, and he caught the message beyond the immediate. "And stop berating yourself—it wasn't any of our faults. Will you do that?"

"Yeah, Jules," he replied, opening his eyes to look deep into hers, assuring her of that. She could see him reluctantly let go of the self-blame as she continued to stroke his hair, although she knew he would always retain a piece of it. "In a heartbeat." The machine next to her beeped, and he bent down and pressed his lips tenderly against hers again, "A heartbeat."

***

They stayed there like that, and it wasn't long before sleep began to reclaim her. He could see her drifting towards it, and he brushed her hair with his fingers.

"Go to sleep, Jules," he murmured softly, and she shook her head in protest. "Go to sleep, sweetheart," he whispered, as he knew she was already halfway there. "I'll be here when you wake up—I promise." She grunted, but nodded, and he saw her body begin to relax. He pressed a kiss against her forehead, letting his lips linger there.

"God help me, but I think I'm in love with you, Jules," he murmured.

Thinking her asleep, he was thoroughly shocked when he heard a faint whisper of, _"Me too_," before he looked down to see her now wholly and completely in the depths of a deep slumber.

For the first time since the event had taken place, Sam Braddock smiled.

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Yay, my first Flashpoint fanfic. Weird. I haven't written anything for a new show for a long time. I'm not sure how much I like this one, it's definitely different, with Jules comforting Sam instead of vice versa, but I dunno, I can kind of see it.

I hate how they ended that episode, ugh!

Anyway, thanks for reading!!

-Aria


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